


To Be a Villager

by SylverFletcher



Series: Hermitcraft Gift Exchange [4]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Fire, Gen, cleo needs an intervention with her fire obsession, cub has all of the brain cells on the server, jellie just wants fish and a nap, lots of fire, scar really likes villagers and cant understand a word they say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:48:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21612469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylverFletcher/pseuds/SylverFletcher
Summary: What do you do when you make the mistake of not sleeping for so long that your prized pirate ship home becomes infested with a hoard of phantoms?Move in to the village at Concorp and hope Cub doesn't notice, obviously.
Series: Hermitcraft Gift Exchange [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542508
Comments: 7
Kudos: 128





	To Be a Villager

**Author's Note:**

> This is for @goodtimeswithscar over on tumblr for the gift exchange. I hope you enjoy it!

Just like everything she ever did, Cleo had a perfectly good reason. A perfectly good explanation, and not at all an excuse, definitely not, for what led her to the course of action she would so choose to take. It was a perfectly valid reason, and nobody could say otherwise. Especially because it was a  _ great _ solution, really, probably one of the best solutions she’d ever come up with, and it’s a tragedy she’d never thought of it sooner.

Usually, when people have a problem, they do whatever they can to deal with it. They work through it, buckle down and do whatever it takes to get past it, to fix whatever’s gone wrong. And Cleo is no different; she’s more than willing to accept responsibility for her mistakes, or at least sometimes anyway, and she’ll do anything she can to deal with her problems on her own. It’s fine, everything is fine, she can handle this, she’s a perfectly functional adult and she can fix the mistake currently roosting in the hull of the Juggernaut.

That’s what she told herself, upon taking her prized phantom-killing axe into hand and ducking below deck. It’s not that she’s  _ afraid _ of the swarm of phantoms that may or may not have taken up residence in her storage by way of her own negligence toward sleeping, it’s just that there’s a lot of them, and she only has one axe, and it’s dark and enclosed in there, and…

She doesn’t like phantoms. She really,  _ really _ doesn’t like phantoms, especially as she makes it below the floor and is met with what must be dozens of glowing green eyes staring back at her from the darkness within her ship. It makes her undead skin crawl, an eerie feeling that reminds her a bit too much of earthworms with no sense of personal space below the surface of her grave, and her grip tightens on her beloved axe. Their ghostly shrieks fill the room, echoing around in the shadows, along with the stray particles that follow the dark shapes that flit around in the corners of her vision. They really are the manifestation of her very own nightmares, though on the bright side, these are nightmares that she can hit with an axe.

It’s only now that she realizes she should’ve brought a torch, the heavy blanket of darkness obscuring everything but the green eyes. It’s enough to see where the phantoms are, but not enough to see what’s on the floor, and she hasn’t even managed to hit one before she trips over something and falls flat on her face. It stirs up a whole slew of them, the sound of screeching and leathery wingbeats cascading overhead like a vicious storm, and she really wishes she at least had another axe to deal with this.

Picking herself back up to her feet, she does her best to swing her weapon into the thick of the noise and glowing green, and she can feel it connect a few times. Some of the shrieks disappear with the deaths of a few phantoms, but the cluster above her head doesn’t seem to shrink in size at all. Worse still, the longer the noise goes on, the more she becomes aware of even more eyes blinking into existence all along the walls. Something crawls over her foot, and with a startled shriek of her own and a glance down, she’s met with what must be  _ thousands _ of tiny eyes staring up at her from the floor.

It suddenly sinks in that she never considered that maybe phantoms could  _ breed, _ or that their offspring may be… creepy, crawly little…  _ wormy _ things...

Y’know what, they can have the ship.

It’s fine.

_ It’s fine _ .

* * *

Scar likes villagers.

They always just go about their lives in such a peaceful manner, as if they don’t have a care in the world. The ones in the Concorp village always wave to him as he passes by, occasionally offer him bread, and on more than one occasion, he’s found Jellie surrounded in children as they pet her. They only ever speak to him in discombobulated grunts and hums that he doesn’t understand in the least, but he doesn’t need to know what they’re saying to appreciate their presence.

It’s on the lazy days when he has nothing much else to do that he enjoys visiting them most. When Cub is off chopping trees for the seventh time this week, when all the other shops are freshly restocked, when his creative drive needs some time to rest, the village within Concorp’s grand walls is where he goes. Cub is the one that works out the deals with them, handles their living situations and makes sure they have everything they need to work, but Scar likes to think of himself as the fun one they just look forward to seeing for either his glowing personality, or maybe just for Jellie. He’s fine with that too, everyone should love Jellie.

But they always welcome him back either way, friendly greetings and warm smiles as they beckon him over to see what they’ve created since his last visit. He may not understand their words, and he doesn’t know if they understand his; but the blacksmiths always glow with pride when he compliments their new weapons, the armorers beam when he tries on their armor, and the fishermen always try to look busy when in reality he knows they’re giving Jellie every fish they catch while he’s there. Every now and then, as well, he ends up with a circle of children he can only guess want to hear a story, and he always obliges, ending in him telling them about one of his and Cub’s many shenanigans, always with a freshly fish-fattened Jellie napping in one of their laps.

It’s a peaceful and welcome existence, beneficial to everyone involved, and Scar is glad they built the village on the grounds. He always looks forward to those lazy days, checking in with faces he recognizes now after all this time, and today is blessedly one of those days. With Jellie on his shoulders and just as excited as he is to check in, he flits from house to house, meeting and greeting all of the villagers and taking the same route he always does. Some of them even pet her as they go now, too, and he has to pause and let them give Jellie her attention before he can move on. His favorite is the baker; they’re far, far shorter than he is or even the rest of the villagers, and he has to duck down for them to be able to pet her.

And that’s how he spends his morning, with his beloved companion happily perched on his shoulders while he goes about his usual route. First the blacksmith, armorer and baker; then he drops by the fisherman for a while, chases the children around in their game, and even passes through the market for a bit, his gaze trailing over the wares as he goes. There’s one villager selling flowers, a whole pile of flower crowns stacked up on their head. Beside them, there’s one with a whole slew of pottery, and then one with various vegetables that look like they must be from the farms. Then there’s Cleo with a bunch of mob heads, then another villager with fish, and one with a bunch of books, and…

Wait, Cleo?

Her face sinks into his recognition a good five stalls down, and he doubles back, unsure that it was really her that he saw. But there’s no mistaking it; behind a stall covered in mob heads, mostly cod, there’s the distinct grey of her undead skin and the fiery red catching the sunlight, most definitely  _ not _ the features of a villager.

He’s also pretty sure she’s not supposed to be here, considering this is private Concorp property and all. “Cleo, what are you doing here?” He asks, watching over the pile of mob heads as her face clearly gives away that she’s been caught.

“Mrrrrhmhmm?” She says back, in a voice that so accurately mimics the other villagers, Scar genuinely has to pause and wonder if he’s losing his mind and this is just a normal villager.

“...Cleo?” Scar asks again, squinting at her. It sure  _ looks _ like Cleo, but suddenly, he isn’t so sure.

“Hrrrmrm?” She says back again, and then nods at the mob heads on the table. “Hrmmrrm.”

It’s just like a villager to get annoyed and try to turn the topic back to their wares, another point that has him leaning toward the option of not-Cleo, but he knows better than to just accept this situation as it is and move on in the off chance this  _ is _ Cleo and Cub finds her here later, knowing Scar passed by first. Instead, he glances around, searching for any other sign that may explain what’s actually going on here.

At first there’s nothing, and Cleo just keeps staring at him, occasionally pointedly glancing at her mob heads. But there  _ is _ something off about the market around them, and though it takes a good few moments for Scar to pinpoint what it is, it finally hits him that all of the other villagers are avoiding them. The ones in the stalls on either side of Cleo keep glancing at her, clearly some level of nervous with her presence, and none of the others will come anywhere near. It’s a detail that sinks the nail in Cleo’s coffin, and Scar turns back to her with the confidence of knowing he isn’t completely losing his mind from staring at dirt and concrete for nearly three days straight.

“Okay Cleo, I know that’s you. The villagers are acting like there’s a zombie in their village  _ because there is.” _ He tells her, leaving no room for her shenanigans and busting her act wide open. He can hear a faint swear under her breath and nearly covers Jellie’s ears at the sound of it. “Now please tell me why you seem to have moved in.”

“I burned down my ship.”

That’s… not the answer he was expecting. He’s almost sure it’s a joke, but her deadpan expression and tone tell otherwise. “I, you-- what?”

“My ship. The Juggernaut. The thing with the rainbow sails.” She reiterates, her tone staying completely deadpan. “I set it on fire.”

“On accident?”

“On purpose.”

Now he’s really confused. And… more than a little concerned. Cleo loves her ship. “Are you, Cleo are you okay?”

“I’m fine. This is fine.” She gestures around her. “I’m a villager now.”

“You’re definitely not a villager.”

“I am now.”

“Cleo--”

“My days of pirating are long behind me. The universe spoke to me and it said ‘Cleo, you should stop being a pirate, and now your ship is full of phantoms and their creepy babies so you have no choice.’” She’s still entirely deadpan, but he can see the faint tense pull to her face that gives away how  _ not _ okay she actually is with the burning of her prized ship. And suddenly, a lot of things make a lot more sense. He knows Cleo hates phantoms with a fiery burning passion, and if they happened to infest her ship and apparently multiply enough that she couldn’t deal with them… well, it’s just like her to react by burning the entire thing down and becoming a villager.

Still, he feels for her. While he probably wouldn’t do the same to one of his builds, if it was bad enough, he can definitely imagine being tempted, and he can definitely imagine the heavy sadness that would follow. It explains why she’s apparently cast off everything she had and decided to completely start over, here in the Concorp village, instead of trying to rebuild her ship all over again. And it explains the way her face seems to pull ever so slightly more tense, as if she’s trying not to be emotional about it.

“Oh, Cleo,” Scar sighs, sympathetic. In one fluid motion he disentangles Jellie from his shoulders and holds her over the stall for Cleo to take, which the zombie ex-pirate does without hesitation, snuggling the pliant and happy cat close and burying her face into grey tabby fur. “It’s okay. I’ll help you rebuild your ship.”

“Really?”

He nods, and then another thought crosses his mind. Cleo’s probably still in no shape to get started on such a gargantuan task already, or to see the burned shell that’s probably left of the Juggernaut, so he guesses it may be best to just distract her for now until she feels better. Giving her a wide smile, he steps around the stall to join her behind it. “But for now, I’ll be a villager too.”

Her eyes widen, the only feature of her face visible through the puff of Jellie fur. “What about Cub?” She asks, though he can already see the mischievous spark to her gaze.

“What  _ about _ Cub? We’re just villagers.” He replies with a wink, already imagining Cub finding them both here in the way he found Cleo. With a shrug, he adds, “Hrmmrmrm.”

Cleo absolutely  _ beams _ at him, the happiest she’s looked since he found her, and she nods back enthusiastically while petting Jellie. “Hrmrmn.” She says back, falling right back into character.

* * *

It’s late afternoon by the time Cub finishes restocking all of the logs, even though he knows full well they’ll be sold out by tomorrow morning, and returns back to Concorp with a heavy pouch of diamonds in hand. It’s a lot of work to keep all of their shops stocked, but it’s well worth it, and he’s always said a day is a lot of time anyway; there’s no reason he  _ shouldn’t _ be able to restock nearly every shop in the shopping district in that amount of time.

Scar thinks he’s crazy, not having nearly the same patience as he does for toiling away the hours gathering shulkers upon shulkers of every material out there, but he wouldn’t trade it for the world. Scar can do his thing, sculpting works of art out of the very ground itself, and Cub will stick to the grindy things. He feels most at ease when he’s on his own, with nothing but the steady and rhythmic sound of his tools as he works. It gives him time to really think, to get his head on straight about anything and everything, and it’s when he gets most of his best ideas. Really, the other Hermits would benefit from just spending some time relaxing while digging materials, but they’d never believe that, too caught up in having fast paced lives to have the patience for it.

To each their own, he supposes.

Speaking of Scar, though, he finds himself searching around for his partner in business and crime after splitting their profits in the usual chest. It sinks in after a moment that he’s probably over at the village,  _ again, _ considering how often he likes to go over there. Cub likes their villagers, and especially their trades, but Scar takes it to a whole other level. He once saw him trying to have a conversation with one of them, despite the fact he doesn’t understand them in the least, and he’s pretty sure the villagers can’t keep up with his chatter either. The result was Scar going on and on about Jellie, as he does, talking about her orange spot that she’s sensitive about, while the villager chattered back to him about how much they liked soup. Neither had any idea what the other was saying, nor did their conversation align in the slightest, and yet somehow both walked away afterwards looking like they’d just had a very satisfying discussion.

Cub just didn’t get it. But it made Scar happy, and it was fun to watch, so he couldn’t complain.

He makes his way over, intent on finding the other Vex now that his work is done for the day. As much as he enjoys doing his own thing for days on end and making the company run as smoothly as realistically possible, he does also enjoy getting to hang out with his friend whenever they have the time. And of course, maybe pull a prank or a dozen, but that’s besides the point.

The village is bustling with activity, all of them crunching to get as much work done as possible before day’s end. It’s part of what he likes about them, they’re dedicated, hyperfocused on their work just like he is. Well, most of them, he thinks as one in a green robe wanders past him looking about as down to earth as a cloud. But all of the others are hard at work, a whole pile of swords beside the blacksmith that Cub would be willing to believe they’ve only created in the past hour or so. Their efficiency as a village is unmatched, which, as a part of Concorp, is to be expected. All the same, he gives a satisfied nod as he looks around at the organized chaos.

All is as it should be; the village is functioning as normal, not a single thing out of place. Well, at least it seemed that way at first.

Jellie appears out of nowhere, somewhere from deeper into the village, and makes a beeline straight for Cub’s feet. It’s odd to see her without Scar, and the way she immediately rubs against his legs while meowing up at him over and over can’t be a good thing. She’s a patient little thing, even when she’s telling Scar she’s hungry she always just sits at his feet and gives the occasional little meow until she gets his attention, so this kind of demanding behavior is more than enough to give him at least a faint feeling of concern. Before he can reach down to pet her she shoots away again, running a few feet back toward where she came from and stopping to look back at him with another insistent meow. Cub knows how to take a hint, and without any idea of what she may be leading him to, follows after her.

He doesn’t know what to expect, though logically he could guess Scar has gotten himself into some sort of situation, again. The amount of times Cub has come back from working only to find Scar tangled in his elytra, buried under his chest monster that finally gave way to gravity, trapped in a pen of far too many animals, hiding from a wandering trader’s llamas he’d accidentally made angry, on fire, stuck in a hole he’d built himself into without realizing his pickaxe was broken, hiding on a pillar from hordes of zombies, running from an obscene amount of creepers Cub doesn’t even know  _ how _ he managed to find, in a cactus, assaulted by berry bushes, poisoned by pufferfish, in a tree surrounded by phantoms, there was that one time with the witch and an anvil… well, if he had a diamond for every one of those times, Concorp would be twice as rich.

Needless to say, it could be anything, and he’s somewhere between curiosity and mild concern as Jellie leads him through the streets of the village. The deeper in they go, the more concerned the villagers themselves look, to the point Cub starts to think there may be more at play here than just Scar getting trapped somewhere. The fact he can see smoke rising above the buildings doesn’t help reassure him, either.

Rounding one last corner, Jellie stops just in time for Cub to see the streets littered with campfires. It’s hard to see through all the smoke, but he can just barely make out the shape of Scar in the center of them all, casually sitting on the ground and grilling something over the ridiculous amount of fires. Near him, whatever villagers there are that haven’t left the area out of concern look… perfectly okay with this, and half of them are holding food Scar must have cooked for them. Frankly, Cub is just impressed none of them seem to have accidentally tripped over the fires yet, a feat he has to copy now in order to reach his friend.

Jellie stays behind, far enough away that she can’t feel the heat from all the fire, while Cub does his best to make his way into the cluster without burning his coat. Once he’s close enough to make out Scar’s features without the smoke in the way, the other Hermit looks up at him as if absolutely nothing is out of the ordinary about this, a wide and welcoming smile on his face.

“Scar, what are you doing?”

He expects him to explain, to launch into some fantastical story about why this is necessary, about what led him here and what he’s trying to accomplish and how this can probably make the village look better, somehow, or maybe that he just felt like making food for his villager friends. But he says none of those things, his smile only growing that much wider before he just says, “Hrmrmm.”

Staring back at him, Cub expects more. He expects Scar to start off with that, and then laugh, before saying what he really means. But he just looks back down to the various foods he has on the ring of campfires around him, flipping a few of them with a stick and making it very clear he’s done talking.

“Okay, I’m not gonna question it.” It’s not the weirdest thing Scar has ever done, and he trusts him not to burn down the village, so Cub just turns away with the intent to ask him again later once he’s gotten the villager talk out of his system. Absently, he thinks he should probably limit Scar’s time here, if the villagers are going to start rubbing off on him this much. Though he wonders where the fire part came from, since that’s not exactly a habit they tend to have that Scar could’ve picked up on.

Turning around shows him Cleo sitting behind a shulker box just outside of the cluster of campfires, covered in the food Scar has been grilling and seemingly selling it to the villagers.

_ That _ explains where the excessive fire came from.

“Cleo?” Cub asks carefully, eyeing her with a sideways glance. He doesn’t know why she’s here, but if he had to guess, he’d bet whatever’s going on here is probably because of her. He  _ knows _ the fire is, at least. Just as expected, she looks up at him with such a mischievous gremlin expression that it could rival Grian with pockets full of eggs.

“Hrmmm.” She says, and gestures to the food. “Hrmrmrm. Hrm?”

“Ah, yes, this looks great.” He nods, peering down at her display with interest. “Brilliant idea here, using the campfires to your advantage. Really genius, I may have to use that myself.”

“Thank you.” Cleo crosses her arms, nodding proudly to herself, while Cub has to hold back a laugh.

“So you  _ can _ still speak.”

Her eyes widen in an instant as she realizes her mistake, followed by a loud swear that leaves Cub chuckling. Her previously proud attitude turns into a pout, giving him a halfhearted narrowed glare and making it clear exactly what they’re doing here. He doesn’t know why Cleo is in Concorp, or how she and Scar teamed up to create this mess, but he can definitely guess they just did it to have a bit of fun and mess with him.

If she wasn’t so trigger happy with fire, he’d almost want her to join in on some of their pranks. Almost.

There’s something else under all of this, though, he’s sure. She wouldn’t come here and insert herself into the village just because, especially not with how cautious she gets around the two of them due to her propensity for avoiding pranks. He knows there has to be something else, and he can’t clean up this mess until he’s sure they won’t just make another.

"So Cleo,” Cub starts, casually leaning an elbow on her shulker. “Have you finally decided to give all allegiances over to Concorp, become our head of all matters privateering and reacquiring on the high seas?"

"That'd be kinda hard without a ship." She shrugs back.  _ Bingo. _ “Besides, I like having my soul. I’d rather not sell it to your corporation thanks.”

He ignores that last part. Pointedly looking around, he turns back to her. “Would that have anything to do with the, uh, fire?”

Her face is completely deadpan as she stares back at him, followed with an equally deadpan, “Did you know phantoms can  _ breed?” _

“Nah, had no idea.” Cub shrugs, turning away again with a wave and a chuckle. “Anyway, have fun with your… whatever it is you’re doing, I have some work to do.”

Cleo doesn’t seem to question the hidden meaning behind his farewell, only shouting after his retreating back with a, “You really need to learn to take a break once in a while!”

He just waves her off without turning back, ignoring her advice. He can take a break once his village isn’t on fire anymore. 

Jellie is still waiting right where he left her, gazing longingly toward the mass of campfires she doesn’t dare approach. “Wanna come with me?” Cub asks, pausing beside her. She looks between him and the smoke-obscured Scar a ways away a few times, until finally meowing and standing up. He’s actually surprised, sure she’d just choose to wait here until Scar gets bored of his budget barbecuing over there, but it seems she knows well enough by now that Scar will end up wherever Cub is eventually anyway. Scooping her up into his arms and continuing on his way, he makes a mental note to grab the few spare shulkers of wood he happened to have gathered. He’s gonna need them.

**Author's Note:**

> And then Cleo and Scar came by Tortuga later to rebuild her ship, only to find it was already there exactly as it should be. They both thought Cleo dreamed it all up until they saw Cub chilling in a lawn chair on deck with Jellie napping on him.
> 
> ....Unsurprising to no one, Cleo's soul was then sold to Concorp for rebuilding her ship for her.


End file.
